CIA concerned as US loses troubling numbers of informants
The United States has lost dozens of informants around the
world over the past several years, a report said Tuesday.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent a top-secret
message to its global network of stations and bases that said a concerning
number of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the U.S. have
been captured, killed or compromised, The New York Times said, citing people
familiar with the matter.
"The cable highlighted the struggle the spy agency is
having as it works to recruit spies around the world in difficult operating
environments," the NYT said.
The CIA message also reportedly said intelligence agencies
in countries including China, Iran, Pakistan and Russia have been hunting down
U.S. spies and even turning them into double agents.
The fact that a record number of informants were easily
detected by foreign countries has created a crisis in the CIA. The agency said
that with the constantly developing technology, the detection of informants has
become easier.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has fallen behind in intelligence
gathering on perceived adversaries, having spent the past two decades mostly
focusing on fighting terrorists.
The message also raised several issues that have troubled
the CIA for some time now, including poor tradecraft, being too trusting of
sources, underestimating foreign intelligence agencies and moving too quickly
to recruit informants while not paying enough attention to potential
counterintelligence risks.
"The loss of informants, former officials said, is not
a new problem. But the cable demonstrated the issue is more urgent than is
publicly understood," the NYT report added.
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